Forget everything I said in the last post.

Well, everything I said about tarot, anyway.  I have found the perfect deck.  It’s amazing.  It’s called the Silicon Dawn Tarot. I can’t believe how cool it is.  Although reading more about the tarot, I’m beginning to realize that artists create their own interpretation of the different suits, and they’re not what I thought they were at all.  In another novel I wrote (the ill-fated Ismene retelling…), I wanted to have a scene where a character did a tarot reading, so I did some research and came up with a reading that worked (always easier to go backwards…), but in doing all of this research, I’m discovering that the cards that I picked don’t necessarily say what I want them to at all.  Cups is usually always water, granted, but Fire and Air switch (and I think the Silicon Dawn deck has Pentacles as Fire and not Earth…), and the numbers don’t necessarily follow what I originally remember about them.  For example, I have my Six of Wands as being Disappointment, and I can’t find any reference to that anywhere.  In the traditional deck, it’s the Lord of Victory.  I suppose inverted it could mean Disappointment, but…  It’s just so confusing.  I understand that Fire and Air can switch, but Pentacles seem so…earthy.  Money-grubbing and what not.  Good thing I never made the effort to get that particular book published.  It’s horrible writing anyway.  Dialogue is stilted and scenes are forced.  Whatever.  I’m on to bigger and better things now. Someday I will write the Ismene story and it will be good.  As God as my witness…

My absolute favorite thing about this tarot deck is that she’s included three Fool cards.  The Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.  Haven’t actually seen the Crone in full-size yet, although from my reading, I understand that it was the first one made.  The Crone is flying off the cliff deliberately–taking the chance and the risk.  The Mother is reading–distracted and heedless to the warning from the dog that she’s going over the edge.  Ditto on the Maiden, but she seems to have tripped, is a bit clueless, and is too focused on making sure she looks pretty for the cameras.  And then the Fool shows up in some of the other cards as well, and she’s also in the interpretation of the final Universe card.  It’s amazing.  Have I said that already?  Anyway, here’s my absolute favorite Fool card ever…


Another meeting with the writers group.

It’s been a month, and my writer’s group met again.  Much more positive this time.  A lot of happy faces on the pages.  Much better.  Although since coming up with my fantastic new ideas and deciding to make two books into three, I’ve managed to create a whole new set of problems for myself.  The main one is that I really need to let go of the character that I wrote back in high school.  She was all girly and romantic–which is reasonable, because girls of her age are girly and romantic, but I was, too, and that doesn’t help me write her character now.  I just can’t quite figure out how to get into her head and make her different from me, realistic enough to be a genuine character, yet still someone I (and some other readers, hopefully) can admire.

And then there’s the whole issue that my writing group (of one) brought up about her initial disappearance and why aren’t more people concerned and where has she been and why…?  I’m a little torn on that one, because I don’t want her to be that noticed.  She’s worried about being noticed, despite needing to be at the center of all of the attention (it’s part of her job, after all), so I want her to maintain some sense of privacy.  Perhaps the king secretly knows where she is all along.  Hm.  Still need to work it out a bit.  Maybe I should just do more research today.  Ugh.  Maybe this is too hard.  Maybe I don’t want to be a writer.  Ha…

On a happier note, I spent a little time yesterday researching fool cards from tarot decks and that was interesting.  Not a lot of images out there on their own, but once you start looking for the actual decks…  And there are manga decks, dragon decks, vampire decks (yeah…vampire fool?  A little creepy…) and even a Hello, Kitty deck called Hello, Tarot.  Pretty amusing.  And apparently quite expensive and rare.  It would be.

My new favorite book…and then there’s Fools and Folly…

I still haven’t had an opportunity to really sit down and write, so I’m still using research as an excuse.  No.  Not an excuse.  As a valid activity to be working on while I’m unable to get any writing done.  That’s better.  And my new favorite book is Uppity Women of the Renaissance by Vicki Leon.  She also has others in the series–I’m thinking I’ll also have to check out Uppity Women of Medieval Times as well.  After reading the somewhat snoozy tome that was Barbara Swain’s Fools and Folly During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Vicky is just what I needed.  Every entry is about two pages long, and each one is funny and informative and chock full of good ideas and inspiration.  And so much debate about Lucrezia Borgia.  Did she or didn’t she with Daddy and big brother?  The current biography I’m reading–Sarah Bradford’s, I think–claims that the accusation is absurd.  All gossip and rumor.  Not certain what to believe exactly.  Not certain that it really matters.  Here I thought Lucrezia was the perfect role model for one of my characters, but now…  I’ll finish the biography and see what I think when I’m done.  I don’t like it when biographers become complete advocates for their subjects and defend them at every possible turn.  It’s not like Lucrezia was perfect–there had to be some reason for all those rumors.

But dear Barbara was by far the winner of this weekend’s reading extravaganza.  Fools and Folly is by far the most…unlikely of books.  She doesn’t really go into jesters and fools as actual people.  Well–she does, but it’s only one chapter, and even then it’s done very carefully and intellectually.  Almost like Sam Danon teaching a class over Beaudelaire.  Fools need to fit into Barbara’s theories, and if they don’t, then they are studiously ignored.  And she’s not very good at giving the reasons why.  She gives all these fabulous examples of Medieval attitudes towards fools (many from Latin and Roman poets/philosophers and some that I had never read before, so quite interesting), but then suddenly states that with Solomon and Marcolf, the roles of wise man and fool traded places.  OK.  That’s great.  Why?  And then she mentions that that “Death destroys both the wise man and the fool.”  So what?  How does this help the fool triumph?  Perhaps I didn’t read closely enough, but I wasn’t getting it.  And how did this reconcile itself with the medieval views of fools that she had just been describing for the past few chapters?  And where do the real jesters come in?  I suppose none of this matters to her thesis, but I wanted something a little bit more comprehensive.  Perhaps I was too tired and reading too quickly (doesn’t help when I leave reading the Interlibrary Loan books–you know, the ones that can’t be renewed–until the last minute).  I’ll read over my notes and try again.